A week later, on December 10th, after having gone over every part of Newgate Prison, and spoken with the prisoners, both male and female, he called, on his way back to Park Lane, on Dr Sims at Cavendish Square, to inform him that Lord John Russell would see that the Jews were relieved from the effect of the resolution passed by the London University, as to the examination of candidates for the degree of Bachelor of Arts, &c. He then accompanied Messrs Isaac Cohen and David Salamons to Kensington.
The Duke of Sussex saw them immediately, and was most kind. He approved of the Jews getting a Bill into the House of Commons to relieve them from the declaration on taking municipal offices, but not before the Bill relieving the Quakers had passed the Lords.
On Sunday, 17th December, he wrote a letter to Lord Melbourne to solicit the honour of an interview, previously to the Municipal Corporation Declaration Bill going into Committee. In the course of an hour his Lordship sent him a note in his own handwriting, saying he would be glad to see him the next day at half-past three, at Downing Street. Sir Moses immediately communicated with Messrs David Salamons and I. L. Goldsmid, and requested them to accompany him there on the following day.
Agreeably to this intimation they were at the appointed time in Downing Street. Lord Melbourne received them at once, the Marquis of Lansdowne being with him. Both of them, Sir Moses says, were very polite, but gave them to understand that they could not include the Jews in the present Bill, as they would not be able to carry it through the Lords.
On the same day he was officially informed of his having been elected President for the year of the Jews' Free School, but the duties of the Shrievalty prevented his accepting the honour. After calling at Newgate and Whitecross Street Prison, and speaking to all the prisoners, he attended at Doctors Commons to administer the will of his late uncle.
On December 19th he wrote a letter to Mr Alteston, Master of the Merchant Taylors' Company, offering to give £50 as a prize to the best Hebrew scholar in the Company's schools, as a token of his appreciation of the benevolence of the Company.
The diary of the year 1837 concludes with an entry referring to a banquet given at the London Coffee House by the Commercial Travellers' Society, under the presidency of Sir Chapman Marshall, at which Sir Moses was present. Two hundred persons sat down to table, among whom £1200 was collected for the benefit of the institution. This entry is followed by an account of a narrow escape of Sir Moses and Lady Montefiore. "We have been much alarmed," he writes, "by some person firing a pistol at us, near Welling, on the road from Rochester to London; happily it missed both horses and carriage; the postboy was much frightened."